


End of the Line

by Dalankar



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalankar/pseuds/Dalankar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the thread Steve Rogers would have always pulled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

> Post Winter Soldier.

_Sir, it seems the procedure wasn't entirely successful._

_In what way?_

_We have been able to suppress most of his memories concerning his past life, however…_

_Stop mincing words, doctor. I have no patience for it._

_It's Captain America, sir. The subject is showing some tenacity regarding the matter. So far he has shown signs of remembrance within 24 hours of defrosting._

_Extend the treatment period._

_But, sir-_

_Pain can erase the most persistent of memories. In the end, even Captain America will be forgotten._

 

-

 

"Some idiot watching the crash filmed this." Steve frowns but takes Natasha's phone. He watches as the Helicarrier plummets towards the earth in flames. The footage is blurry, shaky with the recorder's excitement. But it is clear enough for Steve to see himself falling. He cannot see Bucky but he knows he's up there, watching him from the wrecked ship. Steve remembers closing his eyes just before he hit the water. He had wanted Bucky to be the last thing he saw. He watches himself hit the water and disappear underneath the dark surface. Then-

"Bucky." A dark streak jumps from the falling Helicarrier. Like a bullet out of a gun, Bucky dives after him. Steve watches, breathless, as Bucky resurfaces minutes later, his silver arm wrapped securely around Steve's chest. Steve tries to blink back the tears as Bucky lowers him to the ground before walking away.

"I didn't want hope to be the only thing you had on this chase," Natasha tells him, carefully not looking at him. "I don't know how much, but he remembers enough to have saved you."

Steve swallows hard and looks up. "Thank you."

She shrugs. "Friends, right?"

 

-

 

After weeks of searching, Steve finds Bucky fighting for his life against a small army of Hydra. Bucky had stopped being an asset the moment he saved Captain America's life. Steve storms in after them, taking down several Hydra agents on his way up to the higher floors of the building where he can hear gun shots. He arrives on the top floor, fending off bullets with his shield and knocking men through walls and finally spots Bucky who sees Steve and freezes. Freezes for long enough for enemy bullets to find their mark.

"No!" Steve shouts as Bucky flinches back, gives him one last look and stumbles down the corridor. Steve growls in anger and takes down the rest of the hydra agents in record time.

He finds Bucky by the emergency stairs. Bucky looks up at him as Steve enters his field of vision.

"Hey, Buck."

Bucky shudders.

"Why do you keep-" Bucky gestures in Steve's direction. "Why do you follow me like this?"

Steve takes another step forward. "Bucky-"

Bucky steps back, shaking his head. "I'm not- why can't you understand, I can't be him. I can't be Bucky anymore. I'm a monster, Steve. Why can't you-"

"Say that again."

Bucky freezes, eyes locked with Steve. He looks lost.

"You said 'Steve'."

Bucky's hands curl into fists and he looks away. "It's your name."

Steve smiles, he can't help it. "Yeah, it is."

Bucky looks at him again and in those blue eyes Steve sees clearer than ever, his Bucky. The one that had never let Steve fight his battles alone, the one that had slept on his couch for weeks and weeks after Steve's mother passed. His Bucky, the one thread he would have always pulled.

"I barely remember you. And I don't-" Bucky's voice is pleading, "I don't want to remember anymore. I don't want to know what I've lost."

"Not everything. You haven't lost everything." Another step forward. Steve can see the blood now, the front of Bucky's shirt is drenched with it. "I'm still here. You've got me."

Bucky laughs hopelessly and leans back against the wall. "Why?"

"You know why."

Bucky shakes his head. "Whatever we were… How can you hope for it again?"

Steve shrugs with a smile. "You know me, I don't give up."

"I know," Bucky whispers and he slowly slides to the floor with a groan. Steve is beside him in a heartbeat.

"Bucky?"

Bucky turns his head to look at him. "Wouldn’t it be better to die now? I think-" Bucky grits his teeth in pain and Steve dares, finally, to reach out and touch him. A hand on the shoulder and for the first time since this chase began Bucky doesn't try to break it.

"Help is coming. Hang in there for me, Buck."

Bucky smiles, eyes falling shut. "You should let go."

Steve pulls Bucky against his chest and hears a car coming to a screeching halt outside. "Never."

 

-

 

Steve wakes up with a jerk. Whatever he'd been dreaming about fades and he realises he'd fallen asleep on the chair. Bucky is looking at him from the bed. He looks better. More colour in his face today. Steve should really stop being surprised by Natasha's skillset. She had patched Bucky up so well that if he stays still for a few weeks, he'd be able to walk without pain.

"How are you feeling?" Steve asks, indulging in the luxury of having Bucky so close without worrying for his own life.

"Your prisons have comfortable beds," Bucky comments.

Steve stands up, walks over to the window, flips the latches and opens them wide. The summer breeze immediately stirs the curtains.

"You're not in prison, Bucky," Steve says, looking back at the bed.

"Why not?"

"I didn't follow you for SHIELD, or the government or for anyone else. I found you. Just me." Natasha had refrained from calling him a fool but it had been so clear in her eyes. Sam had told him to be careful, 'Because man, when you find him, the government's gonna want him but so will the baddies. So call me if your boy gets you into trouble.'

"I can leave whenever I want?"

Steve walks over to the bed and sits back down on his chair. "You know I'd follow you."

Bucky turns his head away. His long hair is spread over the pillow like a dark halo. "You're holding onto a ghost. I can't go back to the Bucky you knew."

"Hey, Buck," Steve leans forward and Bucky eventually looks back at him. "Until a few months ago, I thought you were dead. Even if you're a ghost, Bucky, I'd take that over dead."

Bucky huffs out a laugh. "So you're okay with everything I've done? With all the people I killed?"

"You were following orders."

"You wouldn't have. You would never have done what I did."

"I would have, if I didn’t know who I was."

Bucky holds his eyes. "Do you think I know who I am now?"

"Yes."

 

-

 

The next time he wakes up, it is because he's sure he heard something. He's on his feet before he's fully awake, going into defensive mode and after a long moment of not being attacked, Steve realises that what he'd heard was Bucky. Bucky's head whips side to side on the pillow, face scrunched and eyes squeezed shut. He is having a nightmare. Steve draws closer. Bucky used to have nightmares before too. The war had never sat well with Bucky, even when he had never questioned enlisting, even when he'd been one of the best soldiers Steve had known, the toll was most obvious in sleep. Steve had been there whenever he could, made sure Bucky was not alone. He tries not to wonder about all the times he had not been there. But he is here now. And he has no intension of leaving Bucky alone again.

"Buck. Bucky, wake up."

Bucky's movements ease and Steve sits down beside him on the bed. "Come on, Buck." Bucky's eyes open in tiny slits. Steve ducks just in time as Bucky swings a fist at him. He springs back as Bucky sits up in bed, chest heaving, eyes wide open.

"It's me," Steve tells him softly. "Bucky, it's Steve."

Bucky's head slowly lifts, hair curtaining his face.

"It was a nightmare, Buck. Just a nightmare. You're safe."

"Steve?" Bucky's voice sounds as though he doesn't really believe it.

Steve steps closer. "Yeah, Bucky. It's me."

"I lost you." Bucky shakes his head. "I lost you."

Steve sits down on the bed, reaches out a hand towards Bucky. "I'm here. I'm right here, Bucky."

Bucky stares at his hand, held halfway towards him and slowly, hesitantly, reaches back. Steve holds his breath, and blinks tears back when Bucky's fingers touch his'. Bucky's head snaps up, blue eyes wide.

Steve links their hands. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You'd leave, if they wanted you back," Bucky whispers.

"Not without you."

Bucky drops his head, hair falling back to shield him. "They tried so hard. So hard to make me forget. But I couldn't." Steve doesn't miss the tears that are running down over Bucky's cheeks. "I couldn't forget you. Even if I forgot everything else, I couldn't forget you."

Steve had thought that it was him who had held on, who had refused to let Bucky go. But Bucky had held on through years of torture, of deliberate attempts to make him forget. Bucky had kept Steve closer than Steve would have thought possible and Steve wants to find them all, every single head of hydra and make them pay for every hurt they had done to Bucky.

Steve wraps his other arm around Bucky, pulls him closer and lowers his face onto Bucky's dark hair to hide his own tears. "Thank you, Bucky. Thank you for not letting me go."

 

-

 

"Everything is gone," Bucky says softly, looking over the cityscape.

"Almost."

Bucky turns his head in Steve's direction but doesn't look at him.

"Would you go back? If you could, would you do it?" Bucky asks him.

Steve looks at him. This is the first day Bucky has been able to come out of the house, broken leg healed just enough to let him walk a little. Standing here with him like this it feels like nothing has changed at all.

"No."

Bucky laughs. "I didn't think so."

"If you had asked me seven months ago, I would have said yes," Steve tells him quietly and Bucky turns fully to look at him.

"Following me sure got you into a lot of trouble." Bucky reaches up a hand, resting it gently over Steve's cheek.

Steve smiles and turns his head slightly into the touch. Bucky's hand is warm, he has always been so warm.

"You never really gave me much of a choice."

Bucky leans up to kiss him. Steve threads a hand into Bucky's long hair and kisses him back. His first kiss since 1944. Bucky laughs slightly into the kiss.

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you always been such a bad kisser?"

 

*

 

 

 


End file.
